Lucid, a Fremont, Calif.-based startup that hopes to release its first product at the end of the year, believes the solution is to drop 360 degrees entirely. Co-founder and CEO Han Jin calls its LucidCam camera the GoPro of virtual reality because it’s built to be inexpensive, uncomplicated and easy to take anywhere.

LucidCam looks a bit like a flattened, elongated hockey puck. It sports twin cameras that allow it to shoot 3D video and stills. When I popped on an Oculus headset to watch a video shot on a very early prototype, I was greeted by a woman and a baby. The baby played with a xylophone before noticing “my” presence and crawling toward me with a smile.

It was an intimate moment that actually belonged to Jin’s co-founder Adam Rowell. The film wasn’t shot in hyper-realistic HD like those made by some of Lucid’s founders, but the slightly cloudy effect made it feel like a vintage home movie. It actually contributed to the emotional pull of the scene and didn’t detract from the feeling of presence. (Of course, Jin and his team are still working toward offering HD video.)

Lucid CEO Han Jin with a LucidCam design prototype.

Jin, who was previously working at a Y Combinator-backed startup, said he was inspired to work with Rowell on Lucid because of his own family. He was born in China, but grew up in Germany and eventually moved to California to attend school at University of California, Berkeley. He described sending videos shot with LucidCam to his grandmother, who he has not seen in several years. He previously found it difficult to re-create a scene for someone so far away.

“You are re-experiencing something through the eyes of someone else,” Jin said. “It’s like time traveling.”

That idea of recapturing someone’s sight is built right into the design of LucidCam. Most cameras made for virtual reality capture a full 360 degrees, allowing you to look up, forward and backward when you view the output in a VR headset. But LucidCam only captures 180 degrees. That means that you can sit looking forward and turn your head slightly left or right before you glimpse the black edge of the field of view.

“No one does this,” Jin said, turning his entire body to look over the back of his chair.

It’s somewhat true. Not every virtual reality experience actually needs 360 degrees. People in the industry take it as a given because it’s one of the huge firsts — and strengths — of virtual reality. But it’s natural for viewers to want to take a seat and more passively turn their head every once in a while. The 3D video, and sense of presence, still makes for an impressive experience.

LucidCam’s build also means it’s natural for anyone to shoot with it. You don’t have to adapt to mounting the camera on your head, or setting a timer and running away, to get the right shot. Instead, you just point it forward like you would with any current camera.

“My vision for this is to have any person have one at home,” Jin said.

]]>About a year ago, Google said it would pay $3.2 billion for Nest, a company that had sold fewer than a million connected thermostats and fewer than 440,000 connected smoke detectors — which it would later have to stop selling because its most innovative feature might also prove deadly in a fire. That was a lot of money for a company that had a lot of potential, but was still facing a lawsuit from a giant in the thermostat world, and was trying to sell a pricey product that the mainstream market wasn’t quite sure it understood.

Now, as it reorganizes in the wake of what looks to be the surprise departure of two executives, the company is doing what it has to do to prove that $3.2 billion price tag. Google didn’t buy Nest for its beautiful thermostat — it bought into Tony Fadell’s vision of a connected home full of better products that would learn from users and improve their lives. Along the way, if it helped Google get into hardware and collect vast amounts of data that might one day help solve energy crises or improve computer vision, that’s all to the good.

But to do that, Nest has to get big — moving beyond thermostats, smoke detectors and cameras. That requires a lot of discipline. So when I saw reports of a culture clash leading to the departure of Greg Duffy, the former CEO of Dropcam on Friday evening, it didn’t surprise me. The report alleged a “culture of meetings,” and Duffy appeared to confirm his departure via a tweet. Duffy wasn’t the only one who left: Nest’s VP of Technology Yoky Matsuoka also left, reportedly heading for a role at Twitter.

This did surprise me, as a Nest employee and official spokeswoman offered to have Matsuoka come to my house to fix my Nest as part of a joke, on a call with me on Thursday. I doubt they would have offered that in jest if her departure was common knowledge at that time. In an article about memos acquired by Tech Crunch after the loss of the two executives, several issues stand out, but all of them point to a company trying to scale up to become a multi-billion-dollar business relatively quickly.

The first thing that jumps out is the crazy work schedule — employees were being asked to work Saturdays until April or May, tied to an ambitious product release schedule for Project Quartz and Black Quartz, which TechCrunch says are two camera updates. Nest’s competition in the smart home space is offering not just cameras, but security systems with embedded sensors and learning systems that can learn who is in your home and react accordingly. I don’t know what Project Quartz and Black Quartz are at this time, but I can look at the market and say that while easy to use, Dropcam’s products aren’t particularly noteworthy compared to other Wi-Fi cameras out there, and bigger names are getting in the game every day.

The work schedule is one thing, and something that I would imagine would prompt a lot of angst, but the second element of the memos was a reorganization dividing the hardware side of the business and the software and services side of the business. Other roles are getting reorganized as well, with what appear to be clearer reporting lines and a definitive “management” layer.

So will this help Nest build the products it needs to sell tens of millions of connected gadgets, and design dozens of devices over the years?

]]>It has been said that the best camera in the world is the camera you have with you when you want to take a photo, because life keeps moving forward even if you are not ready to capture it. Hopefully the following tips, accessories and app suggestions will make taking photos this holiday season a little easier and a lot more fun.

Low light photography

When taking photos indoors, the challenge is getting enough light in front of your subject. You can certainly do your best to try to get between your subject and the brightest light source in the room, but that strategy does not always work out. With iOS 8, you can take control of the camera’s exposure manually and increase the amount of light in your photos. Just tap on the subject of your photo and you will see a square with small icon image of the sun. By sliding the sun up and down on the screen, you can manually adjust the exposure of the camera. Sliding up allows more light into the photo and sliding down lets less light in.

While adjusting the exposure of a photo in such a manner will be enough of an adjustment for most point and shoot photographers, using an app like Camera+ ($2.99, iPhone) will allow you to take even more control. To start, go into the settings for Camera+ and enter into the Advanced controls. Here you will be able to toggle on the ‘Full manual’, ‘Live exposure’ and ‘Always show’ modes of the app. This will enable additional controls on the screen for manually adjusting the shutter speed, ISO, focus and white balance of the photo.

While a slower shutter speed will let in more light, it will also potentially create blurry photos when things are in motion. Another thing to keep in mind that while a higher ISO setting can help with low light situations, it can also make the image somewhat grainier. Overexposing a photo can often times have undesirable effects; take a few practice shots first to see how you like the results.

Taking group photos

What helps with low light situations and is also a must have accessory when taking group photos? A tripod. There are many tripods to consider, but when it comes to your iPhone what you really need is a way to mount the iPhone onto the tripod. I have been using iStabilizer ($15, Amazon) for a few years now. The great thing about it is that it works with a variety of smartphones and can even accommodate whatever case you are using. It works by gripping the phone between a set of spring operated levers. Be careful not to pinch the volume control in the process of setting it up, otherwise you will end up taking more photos than you bargained for.

Once you have your iPhone mounted on a tripod, you will want to have the camera take the photo while you, the photographer, can be in the photo as well. Within the iOS 8 Camera app you can set either a 3 second or a 10 second timer. The flash will count down the seconds and the camera will take a burst of ten photos for you to choose from. That way you can review all ten photos to see whose eyes were open and whose eyes were shut. In general, using burst mode is a great way to take posed shots when there are multiple subjects to control.

Stepping things up a bit, you can also opt to get a Bluetooth remote for your iPhone and control exactly when each photo is taken. I have found the Satechi BT Media Remote ($35, Amazon) to be that remote. Originally purchased to control my Keynote presentations on my Mac, I discovered that once paired with my iPhone, the Satechi BT Media Remote could also be used to take photos. The great thins is that it is a Bluetooth remote and not an IR remote found on other types of cameras, which means you do not have to be within the line of sight to use the remote; you can keep the remote out of the picture. Used in combination with the timer, you can take multiple different poses without having to run back and forth to the tripod.

Adding festive holiday backgrounds and text

Once you have captured the moment, it is time to have a little fun and add some backgrounds, text and frames to your holiday photos.

Juxtaposer ($2.99 Universal) is a quick and easy way to replace the background of a photo while keeping the subject front and center. It works by selecting two images, the foreground and the background. You then begin to erase sections of the foreground image exposing the background image. You can zoom in and out of the photo gaining more detailed control of what part of the top photo you want to erase. It works in a similar fashion to the popular Color Splash ($0.99 iPhone, $1.99 iPad) by the same developer.

Over ($1.99 Universal) is a typography that will allow you to add professional looking text to your photos. You can adjust the size, color, tilt and location of the text you place in each photo. The included set of fonts are enough to get started, but there are additional font packs that you can purchase if you find that you have reached the end of your creative limits. Other apps do allow you to place text on a photo, but not with the same level of control that Over has to offer.

Halftone 2 ($1.99 Universal) is a comic book layout app that can take a series of photos and turn them into a story. You can get creative and create events this holiday that never really happened. Use your creative license. With captions and a variety of different layouts, you can quickly and easily pull together a several different photos and add dialog to make the images come to life.

Pic Collage (Free Universal) is more than just a way to add multiple photos into a collage. When you get started using the app it will feel like a normal framing app. By tapping on the “+” button, you will find an array of different options to add more of a holiday theme to your collage. And don’t think that you have to add multiple photos, you can use it to dress up a single photo as well. You can select from several different background patterns, search for background images, and even add stickers to your collage. It is a great way to create a digital Christmas card to sent to your family and friends.

]]>Netgear, a company better known for routers, home storage gear and other networking equipment for consumers, has jumped on the smart home bandwagon with an IP camera. The camera is the first of many products that Netgear hopes to launch under a new home automation brand called Arlo.

The Arlo camera is an impressive beast that will be available online and in retail outlets in January. It offers HD, night vision and indoor/outdoor functionality, and it’s battery operated so you can place it wherever you want. The camera comes with a base station that handles some of the logic required by the camera and by the eventual rules engine that will govern Netgear’s Arlo home automation gear. A package of two cameras and a base station will cost $349.99, while additional cameras will cost $169.99 each. Battery life is about four to six months.

Erich Volkert, Netgear’s senior director of product management, explained some of the camera’s features and described to me how someone might program the cameras to work together. For example, if you have a wide angle on your house, you might set it up to start recording when the camera near your front door detects movement. That way you might catch a better glimpse of the person who came to the front door.

But the camera is only the first step. Volkert says that Netgear will launch other products next year, although for now the focus will be on a semi-closed ecosystem so Netgear customers get a simple and easy-to-use experience. This means that Netgear will work with select partners such as LIFX to build scenarios that might be useful around the home.

The idea reminds me of Nest’s work so far in offering customers a stable of partners that have built features designed to work with Nest. The user doesn’t have to figure out what she wants to program, she just has to select if she wants to enable a new feature between the two products. That model is fundamentally different from Netgear rival Belkin’s approach to the smart home. Belkin’s WeMo devices tie into a variety of third-party services and devices from If This Then That to SmartThings‘ platform. D-Link, another router and home networking equipment maker, has also launched a line of connected cameras, outlets and more but I’ve not heard much about them or tested them.

Netgear also said Wednesday that it has joined the AllSeen Alliance, which is promoting the AllJoyn protocol for devices to interact in a mesh network around the home. Volkert says that Netgear has not yet implemented AllJoyn on the Arlo gear. As it considers that, it will also plan to add the capabilities of the Arlo base station into other Netgear products, such as routers and storage devices. But that is a complicated undertaking that Volkert says will take significant time.

]]>While there are many new features that have been added to both the camera and the photos app on iOS 8 (flagging favorite photos, additional filters, straightening rather than rotating photos, quick access to manual exposure, a timer function and a couple new shooting modes, to name a few), some features have been removed. One big loss: iPhoto is no longer supported on iOS 8. There were quite a few features that iPhoto for iOS had that the new Photos app is lacking.

The following outlines some of the changes that have made it a bit more challenging when it comes to managing the photos you take using your iOS device running iOS 8:

Removal of iPhoto from iOS 8 means no more online journals

Apple has had an on-again off-again relationship with online photo journals and web sites. In November of 2010 .Mac HomePages gave way to MobileMe Web Galleries. Then in June of 2012, MobileMe Web Galleries ceased to exist as iCloud came online. Now the most recent successor, iPhoto Web journals, is being shut down, or at least that is how it appears. With each transition, users of the previous online journaling feature really had little to no options available when it came to migration to a new or replacement feature.

Like its many predecessors, iPhoto Web Journals were a way of personalizing an online gallery of photos. It was like creating a digital scrapbook in the cloud. With it you could add titles, insert comments, include maps, weather and other information intermingled with your photos. Users of journals would typically spend a good amount of time personalizing the delivery of their online photos by telling a story alongside their photos.

The problem this time around is that there was very little notice and there really is no recourse or action that can be taken to preserve your iPhoto projects. And unfortunately there is no easy fix for this. According to Apple’s own support page concerning the migration, “Photo Books, Web Journals, and Slideshows are converted into regular albums in Photos. Text and layouts are not preserved.” And thats it, no more iCloud scrapbooking per Apple.

Only film needs a Camera Roll, not iCloud

In what is likely one of few remaining skeuomorphic design ties to film-based cameras, Apple has finally removed the concept of the Camera Roll. Now all of the photos you take show up in the “Recently Added” folder. What is also missing from iOS 8 is a seperate “My Photo Stream.” That is because all of the photos you have taken, whether they are on your device or not, now show up in the same “Recently Added” folder. This is not just a simple name change, it is a completely different experience. All of your photos are now synced across all of your devices, or at least the last thirty days worth.

Under the hood, not much has changed. Using a tool called iMazing (formerly know as Digital DNA’s DiskAid), I was able to look at the file structure on my new iPhone 6 running iOS 8 as it was tethered to my Mac. The photos taken on each device are still being stored within the /Media/DCIM/ folder. This is the name of the folder that all digital cameras use to store photos.

Thankfully, Apple did not intermingle all of your shared and other device photos into this folder. The only photos located in this folder will be the photos taken directly from the device. The “Recently Added” folder is behaving like some sort of smart folder that shows all of your recent photos. This means that all of the applications you are used to using on either your Mac or PC will still be able to find only the photos taken with that device.

If you are looking to restore the iOS 7 “Camera Roll” behavior on your now upgraded iOS 8 device you are in luck. Seeing as how this is really just a smart folder of sorts, by disabling the “My Stream” functionality of iCloud Photo Streams, the only physical location that “Recent Photos” can look for photos will be your device’s /Media/DCIM/ folder; at least for the photos you have taken in the last thirty days. This would be a great option to choose if you prefer using some other third-party service to automatically upload your photos like Dropbox, Amazon Cloud Drive, Yahoo! Flickr orMicrosoft’s OneDrive.

Hidden photos aren’t hidden and deleted photos aren’t deleted

One new feature in iOS 8 is the ability to hide photos. It is important to note that you are hiding the photos from the Photos organizational feature of the Photos app, not the Albums (two different tabs on the bottom of the Photos app). If you tap and hold a photo in your “Recent Photos” album, the photo will not disappear. The photo will however be removed from the Moments, Collections and Years categories located in the Photos section of the Photos app. As a convenience feature, a new Hidden album will be created in the Photos app that will make all of your Hidden photos that much easier to find. Since the photos are not really hidden, a more appropriate name for the album would be something like “Embarrassing.” And perhaps deleting such photos would be a better course of action to take.

iOS 8 has actually made it even harder to delete photos stored on your device. Tap and hold a photo in your “Recently Added” album and delete it from the album. It will move into the newly created “Recently Deleted” album. It has not yet been deleted from your device. You can still select the image and restore it to the “Recently Added” album. In order to delete the photo for good, you need to delete it again from the “Recently Deleted” album. At least this album has the much-anticipated “Delete All” button that is shown after tapping on the Select button in the top right corner, so your second delete will be a better experience than your first.

A photo that has been deleted from the “Recently Added” album will remain in the device’s /Media/DCIM/ folder. I confirmed this by reviewing the contents of the folder again using iMazing. What is interesting is the fact that iPhoto, Aperture and Image Capture on the Mac could not see the deleted photo. Navigating to the “Recently Deleted” album on the device and selecting restore places the photo back into the “Recently Added” albums and once again iPhoto, Aperture and Image Capture on the Mac can access the image. The actual file in the /Media/DCIM/ folder appears to have remained unchanged. So your deleted photos may not actually be deleted until your iPhone says they are deleted.

]]>The default camera app on iOS 8 is basic by design and it works for most people. But if you’re a serious photographer who cares about adjusting every setting, you should check out a new $2 app called Manual, which takes advantage of new camera access hooks in iOS 8 to allow the user to control settings like shutter speed, ISO, white balance, and exposure.

Manual won’t be for everyone. For your basic friends-and-family shots, the automatic settings provided by the default apps (as well as other photography apps) will produce reliably better results. But if you have the time and skill to dial in the proper settings, Manual gives iPhone photographers the ability to approach maximum picture quality with fine-tuned settings more often associated with DSLRs.

Manual is a well-designed app. On professional-level cameras, there are a variety of different dials and buttons needed for access to the various picture settings. But that complexity doesn’t translate well to a touchscreen, so instead of sticking all the settings in menus, Manual decided to fit most of them on the image preview screen.

On the bottom of the app, Manual provides surprisingly easy-to-access settings for ISO and shutter speed. To change those settings, simply tap on the number, and you’ll get a scrolling dial which will let you select your preferred value. If you simply want to have the app select the right values, keep your finger pressed down on the setting and Manual will pick what it thinks the right value is. Along the top of the app are buttons for flash, white balance, and exposure bracketing. Many photographers will appreciate the attractively designed live histogram as well.

The app even lets you select settings like ISO for the front-facing “selfie” camera. There’s enough cool new camera interface concepts here that I’d be surprised if other apps aren’t taking notes.

]]>Sony has revealed its latest top-end Xperia mobile lineup: the 5.2-inch Z3 smartphone, the smaller but similar 4.6-inch Z3 Compact smartphone, and the 8-inch Z3 Tablet Compact. The new devices were shown off at IFA in Berlin on Wednesday.

On the smartphone side, the big news here is really battery life: Sony is claiming a full two days of normal usage, thanks to improvements like the caching of static images so the screen doesn’t need to keep refreshing. The Xperia Z1 was rated for 1.2 days and its successor, the Z2, for 1.4 days. I currently have a Z1 Compact and it gives me a full two days of light-to-moderate usage, so I’m intrigued to see how the new phones fare in reality.

The phones also now have improved 20.7-megapixel cameras. Sony’s new G lens for Xperia gives a 25mm focal length, which is a bit wider than the 27mm lens found in the Z1 and Z2 lines. With ISO sensitivity up to 12800, it should also produce low-light shots with less graininess. Video capabilities now include improved steady-shot and an intelligent active mode for people who are shooting in-motion subjects while also being in motion. Those shooting video can now also pause and resume recording, and the devices record in 4K.

There’s also an updated camera app with features such as multi-camera – an interesting toy if you have multiple Xperia devices – as well as sound-augmented photos and so on.

It’s worth noting, though, that the Z3 Tablet Compact (pictured right attached to a PS4 controller — it’s the only tablet that can manage this) has a poorer camera than the phones – only 8 megapixels. It also has less battery life, offering up to 13 hours of video playback. That said, Sony is touting its credentials as the thinnest (8.6mm) and lightest (270g) waterproof tablet out there.

On the subject of hardiness, all three devices are now dust-tight, with an IP68 rating. As with earlier models, they’re also waterproof down to 4.9 feet for up to half an hour.

In terms of audio, an area where Sony has a fair amount of pedigree, the flagship Xperia devices now support hi-res audio, which is good news for those shelling out big bucks to buy special versions of their favorite albums from the likes of iTrax, and who have capable headphones or speakers to match. The mobile devices can also “upscale” standard local tunes and streaming music to a higher quality, Sony says – I remain skeptical about the ability to detect audio information lost in compression, however.

All three devices are based on a 2.5GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 chipset – a mild bump up from the 2.3GHz variant found in the current flagship Z2 smartphone and the Z2 tablet, and a bigger upgrade from the 2.2GHz Snapdragon 801 processor found in the Z1 Compact.

The Z3 is 7.3mm thick and slightly lighter than the Z2 at 152g rather than 163g, though it has the same screen size as its predecessor. It also has more rounded edges, to protect the phone if dropped.

The Z3 Compact is again a bit thinner and lighter than the Z1 Compact (8.6mm and 129g, rather than 9.5mm and 137g) but remains roughly the same size, even though its screen is bigger than the 4.3-inch affair on that model (say bye-bye to much of the bezel). As with the earlier version, it has a 720p rather than 1080p screen – suitable for its size. It also has 2GB of RAM whereas the bigger Z3 has 3GB, and uses translucent plastic rather than aluminum around the edges.

Sony also outed a new phone on the cheaper side of things. The E3 comes with a quad-core 1.2GHz processor, has a 4.5-inch screen and a 5-megapixel camera, and isn’t waterproof – this one is intended for Latin America and India, though it will probably also be available in the U.S.

None of these devices have prices yet, though as Sony hasn’t shared those details.

]]>With the expected launch of the newest iPhone about one month away, the usual rumor background noise is starting to become a roar. The latest component shots come from Macrumors via Feld & Volk, a Russian company which slathers iPhones in gold for sports stars and tycoons with more money than taste.

There are couple of new details on what appears to be the 4.7-inch shell that we’re seeing for the first time. First, the cutout Apple logo on the back looks like it’s going to be filled not with a backlight but with an embedded metal logo — like the first iPhone. Feld & Volk are saying that it’s made out of a durable, scratch-resistant material.

There’s also a new image showing a external camera ring, which appears to protrude out of the back of the device. If the photo is accurate, that means the newest iPhone could have a longer focal length than the 4.12mm currently found in the iPhone 5S, which in conjunction with its larger sensor meant the device had a wider angle lens than previous iPhones. A longer focal length could mean the newest iPhone has a camera lens closer to being equivalent to 35mm (on a 35mm camera.)

Of course, as with all leaks, take this one with a grain of salt. Feld & Volk say they get access to these pre-production parts because they’ve been working with the same component makers for years as part of their iPhone customization business, but make no mistake, they stand to profit from these photos being spread far and wide. Their previous leak showed a back case without speaker holes, which I found dubious. Still, genuine parts are out there, as production must be ramping up for a September release.

Recode credibly reported earlier this week that Apple is expected to announce the iPhone on September 9, and based on previous patterns, the device will go on sale the following week.

]]>Android Wear’s Google Now-powered contextual notifications might get most of the attention, but the platform’s second killer feature is as a remote control for your Android device. A new feature in the Google Camera 2.3 update, rolling out Thursday, allows you to use your watch as a wireless remote shutter for your phone.

After updating, when you launch the camera app on your Android phone, a card pops up on the Android Wear screen. Set up your Android-running camera and tap your smartwatch. You’ll get a three second countdown before the shutter snaps, so say cheese.

Selfies from front-facing cameras might be acceptable, but the shooter on the back of your phone produces much higher quality photos. A remote shutter makes self-portraits significantly easier and can help you get clearer pictures and reduce shake as well.

Currently, Android Wear’s remote shutter features is only available on Google’s Camera app because it requires a new application package specifically for this purpose. The update is rolling out in stages and is will be available from Google Play.

Last summer, 3D printing enthusiast LeoM developed a 3D printable film camera and posted it on 3D design repository Thingiverse. Now, he’s offering a kit on a French crowdfunding site that includes the non-plastic parts needed to make the camera. He will use the funding to add improvements like compatibility with more types of film, making it easier to use and improving documentation. The camera’s design is still open source.